Of Blood and Bone (The Minaldi Legacy #1)(59)
Author: Courtney Cole

“Mr. Minaldi, this is your lucky day,” one of them tells me.  “The knife missed your artery.  You’re going to be fine.”

“Did you get Adrian?” I ask, searching behind them.  Adrian isn’t there and the medic shakes his head.

“No.  We haven’t found him yet.  The current is bad today.  He can’t survive out there.”

It doesn’t matter.  There’s only one thing that matters.  One person that matters.

“Do any of you have a satellite phone?” I ask.  “I need to make a call.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

Eva

My cell phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out.  I don’t recognize the number, but I answer it anyway.

“Eva?”

I would know that voice anywhere, that husky, rich voice.

“Luca,” I cry in relief.  My knees feel like they will collapse and I sink back into the chair, my fingers trembling as I clutch the phone. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he tells me.  “I am now.  I’m coming home.  Will you meet me at Chessarae?  There’s so much to explain.”

“I’m already here waiting for you,” I tell him happily.  I feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.  “Hurry home.”

And he does.

A couple of anxious hours later, Luca is walking through the door.  Tall and strong, he strides directly through the room, stopping for no one until he reaches me.  He is wet and as he bends in front of me, his dark hair falls across his forehead and droplets of rain drip into my lap.  He stares at me and it is like we are the only two people in the room, as though his brothers aren’t even here.

Looking into my eyes, he whispers, “I’m not a monster, Eva.”

My heart seems to split into two at the vulnerable look on his face.  At this moment, he is a little boy who wants acceptance.  He is the little boy whose mother hated him, who grew up thinking he wasn’t fit to be alive.  I picture Luca as a scared five-year old, tied to his bed in the dark and my eyes fill with tears.

“No, you aren’t.  You never were.”

He buries his head in my chest, his arms wrapped tightly around me.

“But I’ve done terrible things.  Can you forgive me?”

My heart cramps and a lump forms in my throat. “It wasn’t you, Luca.  It was never you.  There’s nothing to forgive.”

He draws me to him, then pulls me from the chair.  Holding my hand, he leads me from the room.  Christoph and Damien speak to him as we pass, telling him they are glad he’s safe.  He speaks to them, but we don’t stop.  We pass through the large house, winding through the halls until we reach his bedroom.  We tumble into his bed and Luca wraps his arms around me.

We stay awake for the longest time.  We don’t speak, we just exist together.  My head rests against his chest and I listen to his heartbeat.  It is that comforting, strong sound that lulls me to sleep and we stay wrapped together all night.

When I open my eyes, Luca is staring into them.  He is lying on his side watching me, ever beautiful in the morning sun.  He has a bandage on one bare shoulder.

He watches me wake and smiles.

“Good morning.”

I smile back.  “Good morning.”

“We have a lot to talk about,” he says.  I nod.

“I know.  But everything will be alright now, Luca.  We’re going to be fine.  You’re going to be fine.”

“I know,” he agrees.  He bends and kisses me and everything really does feel like it will be fine.

We get up and shower, then have breakfast with his brothers in the formal dining room.   

Christoph is leaving today, but Damien will stay for another day or two to take care of some loose ends.  I don’t ask what his loose ends are, but the following afternoon, a group of hunters come across a pack of wild wolves.  A news story intimates that these wolves might be the very same ones that were responsible for the vicious killings that have happened of late.

Hearing that, I look up into Damien’s intense eyes.  I suddenly know what his ‘loose ends’ were.  He was ensuring that his brother was protected.  I’m sure that someone, somewhere, is getting paid so that the DNA test results on those girls is suppressed, so that there is no evidence that they were sexually violated.  

I should feel guilty about being thankful for that.  But I tell myself that the girls are dead anyway.  There’s no reason why Luca should have to further pay for a crime that he didn’t want to commit.  He was drugged.  It wasn’t really him committing those acts.  And I know that Damien will also ensure that Adrian, the one who should truly pay, is found and privately punished. 

I am more grateful than I can express to Damien.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he says when I try to talk to him about it.  “Luca is my brother, but more than that, he is a good man.  He doesn’t deserve what has happened to him.”

“None of you have,” I tell him. “This thing hasn’t just affected Luca.  It’s affected all of you, for so very long.”

I stop talking and think about Melina and Nicolas and all of the Minaldis before them, all of them believing that they carry some sort of evil genetic anomaly.  All of them believing that they were monsters.  It’s heartbreaking.  I glance at Damien, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.  He shakes his head, as though to free his head of troubling thoughts.

“It’s over now, though,” he points out.  “And Luca has you.  And I know you will help him through this.  My brother is strong and so are you.”

I smile and hug him, and he even feels like Luca.  Strong, powerful and lithe.  He leaves to return to London with instructions to call him if he is needed.

Luca and I are once again alone.

We attempt to return to normalcy, taking it one day at a time.  I stay at Chessarae with him and put things in motion to get my license to practice medicine in Malta.  I can’t imagine returning to the States right now.  I can’t imagine leaving Luca.  I know that he can’t, either.

“Stay with me,” he said to me the day after everything happened.  “Don’t leave.”

And I promised him that I wouldn’t.

Chessarae is a beautiful place, filled with dark memories and beautiful scenery.  I spend my days walking through the gardens, taking trips to town and revising my thesis with my mentor from the hospital in Portland.  When it is finally ready, Luca and I take a week and travel to the States while I defend my dissertation in front of a panel at the University.